Five prominent personalities pay loving tribute to the strength and self-sacrifice of their mothers

Rebbetzin Chava Kuperman

“Until the age of ten and a half, I grew up in the toxic environment of the USSR. In a society that repressed all religion, my parents gave us a rich and complete Torah upbringing. In a terribly stressful environment, they also nurtured our psyche and our emotional health.

“I remember from my childhood how my mother envisioned our future and worked to ensure our emotional health remained intact. For example, she made sure we didn’t feel deprived. Our economic situation was terrible and there was nothing to do about it. My mother couldn’t work, because she didn’t want to send us children to Soviet kindergarten or preschool. My father worked, of course, but because he took off for Shabbos, his income was low. But even though we had so little, my mother bought cheap food so she could serve us everything generously and we’d feel things were plentiful.

“One of my mother’s biggest fears was that we children would ask for chometz on Pesach, because our diet and our means were both so limited, and obviously chometz was all around us; no one else in our environment was keeping Pesach. She combated this by making the best food she could manage on Pesach, ensuring we were extra well-fed with delicious meals.

“My parents had to weigh the risks of sending me to school. If the Russian government found children unregistered in school, they’d punish the parents very harshly. But in school, the teachers could easily figure out that I wasn’t writing on Shabbos, and the family would be accused of religious crimes.

“They decided to send me to school because in Russia, education was important, and my mother figured that if a child doesn’t go to school, his language and knowledge will be limited, and he’ll feel inferior among others in society. She didn’t want us to ever feel ‘less than’ others, embarrassed and different, because it’s easier to stand up for your principles and live a frum life with self-confidence.

“We were different. We were being raised totally differently from every other kid growing up around us, but my parents realized we needed to grow up with pride, not inferiority. We were raised to understand that a religious Jew is higher than others in every single respect.

“School started at age seven, but my mother only sent me when I was eight. In this way, I’d be a year older than the other children, I’d feel older and smarter, and be able to stand up to peer pressure. She explained to me how to find my own ways to keep Shabbos, how to make brachos on my food unobtrusively, and how to find a place to hide myself to daven. (I couldn’t daven Shacharis before I left to school in the winter, since it wasn’t light enough.)

“My mother’s wisdom in the foundations she laid built an inner world of appreciation for Torah and Yiddishkeit for me and my siblings that was strong enough to withstand all the peer pressure of our classmates who were eager communist youth party members, and all the insidious messaging and manipulation of the Soviet state.”

Rebbetzin Chava Kuperman is a daughter of Rav Yitzchok Zilber ztz”l, who was known as the Father of Russian Jewry. She is also a beloved Torah teacher, kiruv personality herself, and author of the book "To Remain a Jew."